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Microsoft will now let you run Azure in your datacenter

Big news for IT professionals out of Microsoft Ignite today: the company is making available a version of Azure that can be hosted in your own datacenter.

The new software, called Microsoft Azure Stack allows you to run your own version of the company’s cloud platform on your own servers. The idea is that you’ll be able to use the same application development and deployment techniques from the hosted cloud platform on your own terms.

Azure Stack is essentially everything you see on the hosted version of the company’s cloud service, including the portal, in a single package for running on premise. The software will be available for the first time “this summer.”

If businesses couldn’t use Azure previously for security reasons, the ability to run it on their own hardware might help win them over. It’s a big move from Microsoft, where competitors like Amazon’s EC2 and Google Cloud Compute don’t provide offerings for hosting your own service.